Organic Universe

Friday, October 31, 2014

Where did the American school system come from? And what are its true purposes?

These are excerpts from John Taylor Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education
Chapter Seven: The Prussian Connection,
Section 93: "The Technology of Subjection" and
Section 94: "The German/American Reichsbank"

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

A drilling platform near the Transocean Discoverer Enterprise drillship
burns off gas collected at the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill on June
25, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. (Chris
Graythen / Getty Images / AFP)

The 2010 BP oil spill that resulted in 172 million gallons of oil in
the Gulf of Mexico has, four years later, left an oily “bathtub ring”
about the size of Rhode Island on the sea floor surrounding the site of
the Macondo well, according to new research.

About 10 million gallons of oil has collected on the sea floor
near the former site of the Deepwater Horizon rig and BP-operated
Macondo well, where the oil spewed from April 20 to July 15 in
2010, according to a study by David Valentine, a University of
California Santa Barbara geochemist, and co-author Christopher
Reddy, a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

The study, published Monday in ‘Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences,’ found that the oil spill has left several
splotches in the Macondo well area, some with more oil residue
than the 1,200-square-mile “bathtub ring.”

Valentine said though there are no chemical signature tests given
the oil has since degraded, the source of the oil is obvious.

"There's this sort of ring where you see around the Macondo
well where the concentrations are elevated," Valentine said,
according to AP.

He added that oil levels found inside the ring were as much as
10,000 times higher than outside the ring. A chemical ingredient
of oil was found on the sea floor, from two-thirds of a mile to a
mile below the water’s surface.

BP questioned the study’s findings, especially since the oil can
no longer be tested given its degraded state.

Waves carry in blobs of oil as it washes ashore from the Deepwater
Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on June 26, 2010 in Orange
Beach, Alabama. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images / AFP)

In an email to AP, spokesman Jason Ryan said, "the authors
failed to identify the source of the oil, leading them to grossly
overstate the amount of residual Macondo oil on the sea floor and
the geographic area in which it is found."

Though such chemical analysis is impossible at this point, study
authors Valentine and Reddy said other evidence point to the
Deepwater Horizon disaster: the depth of the oil, the area it
encompasses, and the distance from the Macondo well.

The study was praised by marine scientists Ed Overton, of
Louisiana State University, and Ian MacDonald, of Florida State
University, neither of whom were involved in its conclusions,
according to AP.

Though the spill is more than four years old, scientists are
still measuring - and debating - the total ecologicalimpact of the BP spill. For now, Reddy said they
believed their findings validated earlier research that found
deep water coral was coated with oil and damaged from the spill.

The Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 people and polluted
Gulf waters that wash onto the shores of five US states as oil
gushed from the drilling rig for nearly three months before the
flow was brought to a halt.
In all, prosecutors said over 4 million barrels of oil spilled
into the Gulf, making it the largest accident of its kind in
petroleum industry history. Around 16,000 miles of coastline were
affected and, according to the National Park Service, over 8,000
animals died as a result.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (Win McNamee / Getty Images / AFP)

In early
September, a federal judge ruled that BP had acted with gross
negligence before the spill, indicating that the corporation may
have to pay billions of dollars in fines.

US District Court Judge Carl Barbier also wrote in his ruling
that two other oil companies — Transocean and Halliburton — acted
negligent as well, but failed to find them as responsible as BP
with regards to the spill. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon
rig, but drilling rights were leased to BP; Halliburton was in
charge of the “cementing” process on the doomed drilling
site.

The three companies, Barbier wrote, are "each liable under
general maritime law for the blowout, explosion and oil
spill," but the bulk of the blame — specifically 67 percent
— will rest on BP. According to Bloomberg News, BP may next face
fines as high as $18 billion — the maximum penalty under the
Clean Water Act — and has already put aside $3.5 billion to cover
those costs.

Despite the ruling, energy companies can count on political
allies in states like Louisiana to defend their interests. For
instance, in June, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law
legislation that rescued dozens of oil and gas companies from a
lawsuit over long-term damage done to the state’s wetlands.

Experts
said the law may very well thwart future claims against
energy companies, including those against BP.

In a letter urging Jindal to veto the legislation, Louisiana
Attorney General Buddy Caldwell wrote that the bill included
“very broad and all-encompassing language” and “may
have other potential serious unintended consequences."

“No one can currently quantify or identify all of the causes
of action which will be swept away if this bill becomes
law,” the letter warned

“In the coming years perhaps the proponents of the bill can
tailor legislation more narrowly drawn which does not portend
such a broad and vague attack on the abilities of the State, and
most importantly, local governmental entities to protect their
citizens.”

"...if the ponds drain, the Magnox fuel will ignite and that would lead to a massive release of radioactive material."

The Ecologist has received a shocking set
of leaked images showing decrepit and grossly inadequate storage
facilities for high level nuclear waste at the Sellafield nuclear plant.

The images (right), from an anonymous source, show the state of spent
nuclear fuel storage ponds that were commissioned in 1952, and used
until the mid-1970's as short term storage for spent fuel until it could
be re-processed, producing plutonium for military use. However they
were completely abandoned in the mid-1970s and have been left derelict
for almost 40 years.

The photographs show cracked concrete tanks holding water
contaminated with high levels of radiation, seagulls bathing on the
water, broken equipment, a dangerous mess of discarded items on elevated
walkways, and weeds growing around the tanks.

Monday, October 27, 2014

A poor, rural community in Calfornia's agricultural belt has run out of water.

At least one California town has gone dry, and many are expected to
follow soon. East Porterville, in Tulare County is now without water, as
the wells that feed it have dried up. Residents, according to Yahoo!
News, now have to drive to the local fire station
to get water to drink, bathe, and flush the toilet. And ironically, the
town is near what was once the largest freshwater lake in California.

Tulare County, which relies heavily on the agricultural industry, is
parched. The some 500 wells that feed its residents and farmers have
gone dry. And the county says that it may be years and cost $20 million
before a new groundwater management program, which includes a hookup
between East Porterville and Porterville's water systems, goes into
effect.

The county is named for Tulare Lake,
which was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. It
was drained for regional agricultural purposes, begining in the early
20th Century. The lake basin is now some of the most fertile soil
in the Central Valley, the most productive agricultural region of the
United States. Although dry for the most part, the lake occasionally
reappears after unusually high levels of rainfall or snow melt, the last
time being 1997.

Earlier this month, a 5,000-gallon-water tank, donated by the county's
Sheriff's Association was delivered to East Porterville, and that is
primary source of water for this low-income community. Residents now
drive to the fire department with empty water jugs and pump water from
the tanks to take home. The county has also been supplying free bottled
water, paid for by the state, to residents for drinking and cooking.

However, there are worries within the community that the county might
use the bottled-water handout to identify undocumented residents or
condemn homes that are in disrepair. Non-profit groups and churches have
also been trying to help supply water to East Porterville residents.

"It's a disaster," says Andrew Lockman, manager of the Tulare County
Office of Emergency Services. "It's not a tornado, it's not a hurricane,
it's a quiet disaster."

California is beginning of the fourth year of the
megadrought (new water year begin in October), with 2014 being the worst
period. For the most part, much lower precipitation rates during the
winter months have fueled the drought. Snowpacks have been meager and
reservoir levels are at historical lows. Warmer and dryer summers have
only exacerbated the problem. Climate forecasters are predicting that
megadroughts such as this one are likely the new norm.

Also problematic for California is the state's water distribution system, a vast network of dams, pipelines, and canals that's more than 90 years old
and not capable, even under the best of conditions, of providing
sufficient water for the state's growing population. NPR News reports
that engineers and politicians agree that a substantial infrastructure
upgrade is needed regardless of future water forecasts. Gov. Jerry Brown
is currently asking voters to pass a bond, totalling $7 billion, to
upgrade the state's water network. Included in this would be two new,
massive reservoirs and expansion of many others in the state.

Meanwhile, dozens of communities in the state are reporting they're on the verge of running out of water. Some say they'll have no water in as little as 60 days.
Many of the communities that are at the crisis point are small, poor
and isolated, often relying on one water source, without backups, to
provide for their customers.

Currently, 14 communities are on the "critical list," meaning they've
informed the state that they've reached a point where they don't believe
they will have adequate public water within the next two months. Some
of these communities have turned to trucking in water for now while they
look for long-term solutions to the drought's ialmpact on their water
systems. California's 154 reservoirs are about 50% below their historic average.

The U.S. Drought Monitor, a government-funded weekly map of drought
conditions, reports that 82% of the state is experiencing a severe to
exceptional drought, with 58% suffering from the harshest of drought
conditions. The entire state has been suffering from drought conditions
since May, the first time in 15 years.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Hawaii authorities on Saturday
told several dozen residents near an active lava flow to prepare for a
possible evacuation in the next three to five days as molten rock oozed
across a country road and edged closer to homes. The flow is currently
about 160 to 230 feet (50 to 70 metres) wide and moving northeast at
about nine metres per hour. Kilauea volcano on the Big Island has been
erupting continuously since 1983.

What is a neutron star? Astronomers tell us that these tiny yet
massively dense objects form by gravitational collapse from the remnants
of a massive star that has exploded. The theoretical neutron star was
invented to try to explain highly intense bursts of energy from tiny
regions of space. However, no one has ever seen a neutron star. Rather,
scientists infer the objects existence when interpreting energetic
emissions in deep space. Does a better explanation exist in the domains
of plasma cosmology and the Electric Universe?

Friday, October 24, 2014

The #US is using the #Ebola outbreak as a smokescreen to go on with its
plans for extracting natural #gas and #oil from #West #Africa, an
investigative journalist says.

The Ebola “hype is to distract
everyone from what is actually happening” in West Africa, Susanne Posel,
chief editor of Occupy Corporatism, told Press TV on Thursday.

“What
is actually happening in Liberia is they [the US] found out they have
natural gas and petrol a hundred years worth or more. They want to
extract it and they don’t want anyone to give them any problems,” she
noted.

She made the remarks as the Obama administration is
deploying thousands of troops to West Africa to help the countries hit
by the deadly epidemic control the viral disease.

Posel said that
the US mainstream media are hyping up the Ebola epidemic because, “It
makes a hell of a lot of sense to completely confuse people while you
are sending troops in to secure an area that a petrol company
[ExxonMobil] is going to extract natural gas and [oil].”

The
4000-strong US force deploying to Liberia--one of the three epicenters
of the Ebola outbreak-- will be joined by hundreds of British troops in a
mission that Washington says is aimed at building medical centers and
training healthcare workers.

“I’m really concerned about the Liberians because I think this is not exactly what is happening to them,” Posel said.

The
International Monetary Fund (#IMF) and the World Bank (#WB) have
proposed plans to secure the extraction of natural gas and oil in the
Ebola-hit regions.

"There is a country that has natural resources
that the IMF, World Bank, the United States and the UK want control
over," Posel said, referring to #Liberia.

The recent Ebola
outbreak started in late 2013 in Guinea and rapidly spread to two more
West African countries, Sierra Leon and Liberia.

With no proven
treatment and no vaccine, the Ebola epidemic could affect 5,000 to
10,000 new people per week, according to the World Health Organization
(WHO).

It’s always interesting when biotech shills spout a bunch of their
credentials on posts about GMOs, complaining that there is no scientific
proof that genetically modified organisms are bad for our health, bad
for the environment, or bad for food sustainability. But here’s
something positive. In researching the true nutrition of food that is
grown organically (without pesticides and herbicides, as GMOs are), one
scientist that is well respected in her field found some revealing
evidence showing how non-GMO, organic foods are better for us. Read on
to learn more.

Many GMO-advocates are probably aware of
the fact that genetically modified crops contain higher levels of
pesticide residues than conventional crops. But what about organic vs.
GMO when it comes to nutrient content? You can argue with a biotech scientist all day long,
and they’ll tell you there is no difference, but they are flat wrong.
It’s no straw man – there is real evidence that organic produce is
better – in a number of ways.

A number of US oil companies are taking advantage of the so-called
“Halliburton Loophole” to circumvent federal legislature regulating
diesel-based fluids in fracking, instead exploiting the environment with
even more toxic chemicals, new report says.“Because of a gap in
the Safe Drinking Water Act, companies are allowed to inject
other petroleum products (beyond diesel) without a permit, and
many of these non-diesel drilling fluids contain even higher
concentrations of the same toxins found in diesel,”reportby the Environmental Integrity
Project released on Wednesday reads.

Titled “Fracking’s Toxic Loophole”, the report says that the 2005
Energy Policy Act authorities the Environmental Protection
Agency’s (EPA) to “regulate diesel-based fracking fluids
because of the toxicity of BTEX compounds” found in diesel.

However due to the so-called “Halliburton loophole” in the
legislature the federal government is not applying the same
protection standards to other fracking fluid other than
diesel-based.

Overall, the Halliburton Loophole represents a significant
reduction in federal oversight of drilling and fracking
operations, the report claims.
“This double standard illustrates what happens when Congress
manipulates environmental statutes for the benefit of polluters,
instead of allowing EPA to make public health decisions based on
the best available science,” the report reads.

Looking at the limited data available through FracFocus, Material
Safety Data Sheets, and state agency websites the study
discovered that at least six fracking fluid additives available
on the market contain more benzene than diesel fuel. In addition
another at least 21 fluids have much higher concentrations of
ethylbenzene than benzene. Chemicals on the market also have high
levels of xylene and toluene, which can lead to increased health
risks.

Citing FracFocus data, the study points out that at least 153
wells in 11 states were fracked with fluids “containing
ethylbenzene between January 2011 and September 2014.” Of
those, 77 wells were found in Oklahoma, 23 in North Dakota,
followed by Texas with 20 wells. The report says that it is not
clear how often these toxic petroleum products are being used.

Reuters / Jonathan Ernst

The documented cases include the injection of a mix of crude oil,
butane, and other fluids with up to 48,000 gallons of 4.1 percent
benzene into a well in Dimmit County, Texas by BlackBrush
O&G, LLC. While Discovery Operating Services, reported using
nearly 1,000 gallons of benzene in eleven wells in Midland and
Upland Counties in Texas.
“Benzene is known to increase cancer risk, and the Safe
Drinking Water Act Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) is designed to
limit exposure to no more than five parts per billion. However,
thanks to the Halliburton loophole, the Safe Drinking Act
regulates diesel-based fluids but no other petroleum products
with much higher benzene concentrations,” the report reads.

The study also cites a case in Oklahoma where Citation Oil and
Gas Corporation of Texas injected mix containing up to 4,538
gallons of ethylbenzene, “equivalent to the amount found in
nearly half a million gallons of diesel fuels.”
“Ethylbenzene is classified as a probable carcinogen, and
cancer risk is considered significant when concentrations exceed
the Maximum Contaminant Level of 0.7 parts per million in
drinking water,” the report says.

Eric Schaeffer Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity
Project and former Director of Civil Enforcement at EPA says that
the loophole must be repealed.
“To protect public health, Congress should repeal the
Halliburton Loophole and EPA should broaden the categories of
fracking fluids that require Safe Drinking Water Act permits,”
said Schaeffer.

“Without these reforms, we are perpetuating a
loophole that allows the unregulated injection of unlimited
quantities of highly toxic pollutants into the ground.”

Last Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued the third in a
series of reports in which it declared that the deep, engineered cavern
inside the mountain — 90 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada — meet the
commission’s ever-changing (Eric Pianin, “Rules changed for Nevada
nuclear waste site plan,” Wash. Post, Dec. 12, 2001) requirements.

Still pending are two more reports and a final NRC ruling on the
site’s suitability. Actual operation of the dump also requires approval
from the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of
Transportation and Energy (DOE). Of course, lawsuits by the State of
Nevada and dozens of environmental groups would follow a decision to
start burying waste.

In spite of 70 years of head scratching,
science and industry have not found a cheap way to “dispose” of
high-level radioactive waste. In 2008, the plan was estimated to cost at
least $90 billion.

The DOE’s 1999 draft environmental impact statement
for Yucca, says that leaving the wastes at 72 US reactor sites in 39
states is just as safe as moving it thousands of miles toward Yucca Mt. —
as long as it is repackaged every 100 years. There is no need to rush
the opening a dumpsite, except that reactor operators want to free-up
storage space for freshly produced waste so they can keep running old
reactors.

Yucca Mt. Project Cancelled for Hundreds of Reasons

While Republicans from nuclear-heavy states are pushing to revive the
Yucca project and hoping for a November take-over of the Senate,
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., broadcasts the science-based
disqualifiers that prove Yucca unsuitable. Among them are fast flowing
water inside the mountain, earthquake faults, lava flows, and the risk
of exploding waste canisters — like the one that burst and wrecked the
Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Project in New Mexico last
February. Joonhong Ahn, an engineering professor at the U. of Calif.,
Berkeley, said in an e-mail to ScienceInsider.com, “… there are still
numerous hurdles ahead.”

Indeed, the Government Accounting Office concluded in 2001 that 293
unresolved scientific and engineering problems hinder the plan. (“GAO Challenges Plans for Storage of Nuclear Waste,”
Wash. Post, Nov. 30, 2001) Responding to the new report, Nevada state
officials made the same point. “The NRC licensing board has admitted
more than 200 Nevada contentions challenging the safety and
environmental impacts of the proposed repository, and Nevada is prepared
to aggressively prosecute these challenges. It is not apparent that the
[NRC report] specifically addressed these and other safety
contentions,” said Bob Halstead, Executive Director of Nevada’s Agency
for Nuclear Projects, in a prepared statement.

“For the NRC staff to publically release just this one volume of the
5-volume Safety Evaluation Report outside the proper context of an
ongoing licensing proceeding, and in the absence of a complete SER, is
unprecedented,” Halsted said. “It creates a false impression that the
safety review has been completed. It is difficult to see what reason
there could be for such a release except to provide political support
and encouragement for Yucca Mountain supporters in Congress and
elsewhere.”

This false impression was spectacularly exaggerated by Rep. John
Shimkus, R-Mich., who told the New York Times Oct. 17, “[N]uclear waste
stored under that mountain … will be safe and secure for at least a
million years.”

Nuclear Waste Production is Kept Alive by Yucca Supporters

Yucca Mt. wouldn’t begin to address the country’s vast nuclear waste
problem. There already are about 70,000 tons of it stored at reactor
sites. This stockpile would fill Yucca to capacity and force the start
of a search for Dump No. 2. Waste that must be containerized for a
million years is the “animated corpse” that will forever haunt our
clean, cheap too-safe-to-meter nuclear power complex.

The Yucca Mt. “mobile Chernobyl” idea — and alternate plans for
regional “interim” dumps — also explodes the risks of radiation
accidents contaminating waste handlers and the people along transport
routes. The DOE’s planning maps show the waste passing through 40
states, 40 Indian Reservations and 100 major cities. In January 2008,
former state transportation analyst Fred Dilger caused alarm
when he told a Hillary Clinton campaign rally that if waste trains go
through Las Vegas, “All of the casinos on the west side of Las Vegas
Boulevard would be bathed in gamma radiation.”

The shipments, using as-yet-untested waste casks, would expose
between 138 and 161 million Americans to the risks of dangerous levels
of radiation and to the consequences of inevitable truck, train and
barge accidents. Even the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement
predicts between 150 and 250 rail or truck crashes over the plan’s
25-year span — about 10 crashes every year for 25 years.

That’s an undying prospect scary enough for a million Halloweens.

John LaForge writes for PeaceVoice, is co-director of Nukewatch—a nuclear watchdog and environmental justice group—and lives at the Plowshares Land Trust out of Luck, Wisconsin.

“I had never heard of so much sickness and death in such a short period of time” -Honda

Babies, Children, Young Adults
Sep ’11: Child… had nosebleeds very often… many others at school who had nose bleeding
Jun ’12: Child had headaches and nausea since the accident
Apr ’13: Friend of an evacuee gave birth to a polydactyl child [birth defect, extra fingers/toes]
Jul ’13: Younger friend of an evacuee… got ill with cancer
Mar ’14: Relative [in] middle school… got ill with rheumatism [and] medicine doesn’t work

Lymph, Thymus, Thyroid Gland Problems
Apr ’11: I felt strange feeling in my lymph nodes… salon staff also felt the same
Sep ’11: My friend’s father died with a tumor in the lymph glands
Sep ’11: Gynecologist mentioned there was an increase of lymph tumors
Jan ’13: Child of an evacuee [had] unsubsidized thyroid exam… thymus gland was swollen
Jan ’13: Several children… from Fukushima [also diagnosed with swollen] thymus gland
Sep ’13: Child of an evacuee had an unsubsidized thyroid examination… they found many cysts
Oct ’13: Friend, an evacuee age 35, developed thyroid cancer
Mar ’14: Friend of an evacuee, in her 30s, had thyroid surgery

Adults Under Retirement Age
Sep ’11: Customer in her 40s got ill with a disease that cannot renew blood
Sep ’11: Woman in her 30s died from cardiac arrest
Aug ’12: My relative died suddenly of subarachnoid hemorrhage… in his 30s
Dec ’12: Resident in his 30s developed a tumor
Dec ’12: Resident in her 40s developed a tumor and died
Jan ’13: Doctor [said] his friends have been dying with cancer one after another
Mar ’13: Man in his 30s died suddenly
Mar ’13: 5 customers… had funerals of close family in very short period… 3 were in their 50s
Oct ’13: Male friend who was doing decontamination work died suddenly

The "innovative" and "challenging new compounds" created each day by
commerce are threatening the planet in which we live, scientists say.
More and more traces of pharmaceuticals are being discovered in our
lakes, rivers and soil daily, and their effects are pretty much
completely unknown.

For once, a lack of regulation on the
government's part is largely to blame. The "environmental spread of
pharmaceuticals" is totally ignored by the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA), allowing these man-made pills to end up everywhere, including our
drinking water.

The Toxic Substances Control Act
of 1976, which hasn't been updated since its creation, excludes drugs
and pesticides. Under the law, the EPA is required to maintain a
registry of industrial compounds that may be potentially toxic, but
advanced safety testing of those materials is not required, according to
a report by The New York Times.

"Congress has not sent an environmental law to the president's desk in 18 years"

Only
a fraction of the estimated 84,000 compounds registered have been
tested for their safety on humans, prompting scientists and
environmental groups to call for serious revisions, in which the risk
assessments of suspect compounds are performed.

"Our chemical
safety net is more hole than net," said Ken Cook, president of the
Environmental Working Group. "Where does that leave us in terms of
scientific understanding of what drugs to regulate?"

Anne Womack
Kolton, vice president for communications at the American Chemistry
Council, which represents chemical manufacturers said, "Think about the
world 40 years ago. It was a vastly different place. It's common sense
to revise the law and make it consistent with what we know about
chemicals today."

The American Chemical Society maintains a database
of chemical substance information containing more than 89 million
organic and inorganic substances and 65 million sequences dating back to
1957. An estimated 15,000 new substances are added each day, many of
which are poorly understood, scientists say.

In an essay published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology,
Dr. Jerald L. Schnoor, a University of Iowa professor of civil and
environmental engineering, wrote about the way older compounds are
altered in the environment. Some substances become even more toxic after they are broken down by plants or animals.

Chemical contamination in the environment is growing at an exponential rate, scientists say

For
example, polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs (which are banned in the
U.S. but keep showing up in the environment), are broken down into even
more "toxic metabolites," reported the Times.

While
investigating the chemistry of the Minnesota Zumbro River,
environmental health scientists were surprised at the "sheer range and
variety" of prescription drugs they found. Relatively high levels of acetaminophen,
an over-the-counter painkiller that causes liver damage in humans, the
antibiotic anti-convulsive carbamazepine, caffeine and pesticides were
among the contaminates found.

"We don't know what these
background levels mean in terms of environmental or public health," said
Deborah Swackhamer, the investigation's lead scientist.

The U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS) tracks chemicals in waterways, sediments,
landfills and municipal sewage sludge, which are often converted to
fertilizer. Steroid hormones and triclosan (an antibacterial agent
banned in Minnesota) were found in sewage.

The antidepressant Prozac has shown up in fish, causing them to be anxious, anti-social and even homicidal, reported the Scientific American.

"We're
looking at an increasingly diverse array of organic and inorganic
chemicals that may have ecosystem health effects," said Edward Furlong, a
USGS chemist. "Many of them are understudied and unrecognized."

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Unless California gets some heavy rain, and soon, the state's roughly 38
million residents will eventually be up a creek without a paddle -- or
without a creek, for that matter. The latest media reports indicate that
some 14 communities throughout the state are now on the verge of
running completely dry, and many more could join them in the coming year
if conditions remain as they are.

A few months ago, the official
count was 28 communities bordering on complete waterless-ness,
according to the Water Resources Control Board. Those that have since
dropped off the list were able to come up with a fix, at least for now.
The other 14, though, face an unprecedented resource collapse that could
leave thousands of Californians with no other choice but to pack their
bags and head to greener pastures.

"It's a sign of how severe this drought is," verbalized Bruce Burton, an assistant deputy director for the board, to the Los Angeles Times
about some of the drastic measures being taken. For the first time
ever, the water board has begun tracking communities throughout the
state that are bordering on complete water loss, a situation that has
never before occurred.

Most of the communities on the brink are located in California's Central Valley, the "food basket" of America that The New York Times
(NYT) once declared to be the nation's greatest food resource. Most of
America's carrots are grown there, as are the bulk of salad greens,
almonds and citrus fruits that we all take for granted -- but that could
soon disappear due to the continued drought.
'Larger, more sophisticated communities' face total water depletion

In some stricken areas, water facilities have been able to secure
temporary supplies from neighboring communities as they figure out
longer-term solutions. In Siskiyou County near the Oregon border, the
city of Montague was actually able to construct a brand-new irrigation
ditch to transport water from a lake 25 miles away, replacing an old
ditch that had run dry back in April.

While most of the communities
facing total water depletion are relatively small in size, with only a
few thousand residents each, the prospect of larger communities also
becoming affected is increasingly likely. Tom Quinn, the executive
director of the Association of California Water Agencies, says that, if
the drought continues, many of the more iconic regions of California will suffer.

"If this drought keeps on going, some larger, more sophisticated communities are going to be in trouble next year," he told the LA Times.

Mountains shifting due to water losses

It isn't just that no new water is coming into California --
underground aquifers and other former backup sources are also running
dry. According to research published in the journal Science, the entire Western United states has lost an astounding 240 gigatons of water since 2013, an amount equivalent to 1 billion tons.

In
spatial terms, this amount of water could be spread out across the
entire Western U.S. in a solid 10-centimeter sheet, constituting about
63 trillion gallons, or enough to fill 75,000 football stadiums. This
loss has not only altered the gravitational field of California, according to the study, but also caused mountains throughout the state to rise up out of the ground in some areas.

"100
percent of the state is in drought, with 82 percent of the land
designated as in 'extreme' or 'exceptional' drought, the highest levels
on the U.S. Drought Monitor scale," explains the National Journal. "Thirty-seven million people are affected by the drought."

This is not the first time the biotech giant has funneled millions into efforts to defeat labeling laws

Monsanto,
the largest genetically-modified seed corporation in the world, has so
far spent over $4 million in a bid to crush an Oregon initiative, up for vote in November, to mandate the labeling of genetically engineered food.

Records
from the Oregon Secretary of State's office show that the company, on
October 8, made a contribution of $2.5 million to opponents of the bill,
bringing the company's total contributions to $4,085,150.

The initiative—ballot measure 92—would require manufacturers and
retailers to label "genetically engineered raw and packaged food."
Backers of the provision say that Oregonians "have the right to know" what is in their food.

This is not the first time Monsanto has poured its funds into efforts to crush such measures. Earlier this month, it was revealed that the company has spent $4.7 million to defeat a similar initiative in Colorado, also up for vote in November.

Monday, October 20, 2014

The Aral Sea is a well known environmental disaster
zone. But this year, it got a whole worse, writes Anson Mackay, as its
biggest basin dried up completely to expose a toxic, salty wasteland.
With continuing irrigation and declining river flows due to climate
change, the desert is only set to expand.

The Aral Sea has reached a new low, literally and figuratively. New satellite images from NASA show that, for the first time in its recorded history, its largest basin has completely dried up.

However, the Aral Sea has an interesting history - and as recently as
600-700 years ago it was as small, if not smaller, than today.

The Aral recovered from that setback to become the world's fourth largest lake, but things might not be so easy this time round.

Today, more people than ever rely on irrigation from rivers that
should instead flow into the sea, and the impact of irrigation is
compounded by another new factor: climate change.

Really a lake - but now, a wasteland

Sandwiched between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea is
actually a lake, albeit a salty, 'terminal' one. It is salty because
evaporation of water from the lake surface is greater than the amount of
water being replenishing through rivers flowing in.

It is terminal because there is no outflowing river. This makes the
Aral Sea very sensitive to variations in its water balance caused either
by climate or by humans.

Indeed, the sea has long been a cause celebre in the world
of environmental catastrophes, an exemplar of the devastating harm that
ill thought-out economic policies can have on the environment.

Intensive irrigation of cotton plantations in the deserts of the
western Soviet Union prevented water reaching the Aral Sea, leading to
the drastically low levels we see today. This in turn meant the
highly-salty waters killed off many plants and animals.

During early Soviet Union times, the Aral Sea and its fringing
wetlands were a significant resource for the fishing industries,
agriculture, animal husbandry and fur trapping.

Six decades of profligate cotton irrigation

But in the 1950s, the extent of irrigated land used for 'white gold'
(cotton) increased dramatically from 4 billion to 8 billion hectares,
with Uzbekistan becoming one of the world's largest cotton producers.
To feed cotton's insatiable demand for water, the Karakum Canal was
built out of the desert sands and because it was unlined, water losses
were extremely high.

During the late 1960s, the amount of water evaporating from the Aral
Sea become greater than the amount of water entering the lake, so lake
levels declined dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s. More than 75% of
the surface area and more than 90% of the lake's volume has been lost.

In 1987-1988, the lake split into two, and the Large and Small Aral
Sea basins were created. International efforts have been made to protect
the Small Aral Sea through the construction of dams, and this has meant
that lake levels here have increased.

The Large Aral Sea continued to shrink and subsequently split itself
into two basins; a deeper, smaller west Large Aral and a more shallow,
but expansive, east Large Aral. And it is this latter basin which NASA
images show had dried out completely this summer.

Toxic, salty dust storms causing disease and death

The environmental impact of the drying Aral has been devastating.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and hundreds of
species have disappeared. Toxic metals and agrochemicals (herbicides,
pesticides, insecticides), used to prevent disease and pests from
lowering cotton yields, found their way into the sea through its rivers.

But because the Aral is a terminal lake, the pollutants were never washed out, and they instead sunk to the bottom sediments.

Now these bottom sediments are exposed to the air, they are blown up into the atmosphere as toxic, salty dust storms, which can spread for many hundreds of kilometres causing increased deaths and chronic disease, especially the young.

However, lower lake levels have also exposed ancient irrigation
systems and mausoleums surrounded by settlements (some remains of which
are still under water), built during the late Middle Ages. This means
that in certain parts of the Aral, lake levels during 13th-14th century
must have been lower.

We still aren't sure exactly what caused such extreme regression, but
a cooler, drier climate played a role. The 13th century Mongol invasion
of central Asia also led to the Amu Dar'ya, one of two major rivers
that feed the Aral, being diverted to the Caspian Sea. Clearly humans were a major factor in the Aral's previous dry spell.

By the late 16th century, the Aral Sea started to fill up again, in
part because irrigated channels meant the Amu Dar'ya once more flowed into the lake.

With climate change and continuing irrigation, water flows will cease

A key question that remains today therefore is how much of the lake's
current regression is due to intensive irrigation and how much may be
due to climate change over the past 50 years. Recent studies suggest only 14% of the shrinking of the Aral Sea since the 1960s was caused by climate change, with irrigation by far the biggest culprit.

Researchers looking at what will happen to Aral Sea levels with
global warming over the next few decades have combined several model
predictions together and expect net water loss to increase as more evaporation leads to less river inflow.

However, if irrigation of the rivers continues, then net water loss
will be even greater as river flow into the Aral Sea will essentially
cease.

Climate change may be one of the world's great problems but
over-irrigation is at least possible to reverse with the right policy
changes. But the two issues together make a disastrous combination.

The future for much of the Aral Sea does not look great.

Anson Mackay is Professor of Environmental
Change at University College London. He received funding from INTAS
between 2003-2005 to research water level change in the Aral Sea over
recent millennia.

Ockham’s Razor says, “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.” Usually
applied in making a decision between two competing possibilities, it
suggests the simplest is most likely correct. It can be applied in the
debate about climate and the viability of computer climate models. An
old joke about economists’ claims they try to predict the tide by
measuring one wave. Is that carrying simplification too far? It
parallels the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) objective
of trying to predict the climate by measuring one variable, CO2.
Conversely, people trying to determine what is wrong with the IPCC
climate models consider a multitude of factors, when the failure is
completely explained by one thing, insufficient data to construct a
model.

IPCC computer climate models are the vehicles of deception for the
anthropogenic global warming (AGW) claim that human CO2 is causing
global warming. They create the results they are designed to produce.

The acronym GIGO, (Garbage In, Garbage Out) reflects that most
working around computer models knew the problem. Some suggest that in
climate science, it actually stands for Gospel In, Gospel Out. This is
an interesting observation, but underscores a serious conundrum. The
Gospel Out results are the IPCC predictions, (projections), and they are
consistently wrong. This is no surprise to me, because I have spoken
out from the start about the inadequacy of the models. I watched
modelers take over and dominate climate conferences as keynote
presenters. It was modelers who dominated the Climatic Research Unit
(CRU), and through them, the IPCC. Society is still enamored of
computers, so they attain an aura of accuracy and truth that is
unjustified. Pierre Gallois explains,

If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out
but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very
expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticize it.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

A trio of researches with the U.S.'s National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has found that though
there are fewer total days per year when tornados occur in the U.S., the
number that occur on days when there are tornados has increased over the past couple of decades. In their paper published in the journal Science,
Harold Brooks, Gregory Carbin and Patrick Marsh describe how they
studied weather data over the past half century and what they found when
looking for trends.

Tornados happen in many places, but because of its unique geography, the
U.S. has more than any other country - mainly due to the lack of a
large mountain dividing east and west. There has been speculation
recently, that global warming
is causing more tornados to occur - though it has also been suggested
it only seems that way because of how quickly information about tornadic
events disseminates in the modern era. The trio at NOAA decided to let
hard facts tell the story. They collected weather data
from the national storm database, which goes back to 1954, to see if
they could coax out any patterns (they only included tornados at least
as strong as an F1).

As it turns out, the trio did find a pattern, they say the data shows very clearly that the U.S. actually has a trend of having fewer days in which there is a tornado over the past two decades - that's the good news. The bad news is that on days when there is a tornado, there are more than there used to be.
The data shows that back in the 1970's there were just .6 days a year
that had 30 or more tornados - after the turn of the century, that
number had risen to 3 days per year. Curiously, the numbers suggest that
the country still experiences on average, the same number of tornadoes
each year, approximately 1,200 - they're just spread out differently.
They also noted that the beginning and end of the tornado "season" in
recent years has fluctuated more wildly than the years prior to that.

The researchers cannot say of course why the spread of tornados has
changed in the U.S., though some might suggest it's due to global
warming or even changes in atmospheric conditions in parts of the
country due to pollution or other unknown factors. What is clear, is
that something is causing a change, and there is now evidence of it,
providing a path for moving forward for better understanding what is
really going on.

Do you do your best to avoid GMOs in food by reading labels and only
buying from trusted brands? Well how would you feel if you found out
that a popular brand of tortilla corn chips that you’ve been buying –
specifically because their packaging states they are GMO-free – was FULL
of GMO corn? Yea, you’ve been eating those tasty little chips like they
were going out of style, all while potentially hurting yourself without
even knowing it. That is exactly what’s happening with tortilla
chip maker Xochitl, a company recently ousted for covertly including
GMO ingredients in its chips.

Xochitl has been printing
the GMO-Free label on the bottom left on their packages, branding
themselves as a label that consumers can trust. However, after
conducting a study looking at many products that are supposed to be
GMO-free, Consumer Reports, has found this labeling to be less than
honest.

Consumer Reports says that Xochitl has been lying
about their GMO content – and not just a little bit. We aren’t talking
about trace amounts of GMO corn.

Despite
the non-GMO claims by Xochitl (pronounced “so-cheel”) and their Totopos
de Maiz original corn chips, the Consumer Reports investigation found
that the non-organic (supposedly non-GMO) varieties of the chips
contain over 75% GMO corn, after testing 6 different packages.

GMO corn was found in each type of chips, even with the ‘all natural’ and ‘No GMO’ claims on the front and backs of packages.

The
Xochitl finding raises an important question about the unverified,
non-third party claims of companies trying to sell their GMO-containing
products. It also makes the suggestions of the Grocery Manufacturer’s
Association that we should just trust food manufacturers to
‘voluntarily’ label their GMOS without independent verification and
government mandated labeling even more ridiculous.

The report, which can be read in its entirety here,
states that the majority of samples from companies that make
unregulated non-GMO claims contained about 0.9% GMO corn or soy on
average. Xochitl just happened to grossly overstep that average.

So, even though looking at packaging can help you to minimize GMO
consumption (as most non-GMO advocates have been saying for years), it
is going to be more and more difficult to find truly non-GMO products
unless they are sourced outside of the US. as so many of our crops are
contaminated with genetically modified seed.

It is also vital to
note that “All Natural” products had comparable levels of GMO corn or
soy to their “conventional” counterparts according to Consumer Reports;
in other words, the “All Natural” label is virtually meaningless if you want to avoid GMOs.

Though
it is understandable that food companies would want to present their
products as GMO-free since over 96% of Americans want their food labeled
so they can avoid the stuff, producing a product and selling it to
national grocery store chains all over the nation with a false ‘NO-GMO’
brand is unconscionable – and illegal. Their website, not just their
brand packaging, states this claim.

If we continue to fight against this trend, I do think we can win. After all, several multi-million dollar lawsuits against Coca-Cola - makers of Vitamin Water, and Tropicana - for claiming their products were ‘all natural’ when they were not, have been won.

We
are, in fact, the largest GMO-producing country in the world. Over 90%
of the soy we grow and 90% of our corn is now genetically modified.

Please,
adjust your grocery shopping habits according to this information, and
of course let Xochitl know just how you feel about their fraudulent
practices on their contact page here - their Facebook page will no longer load.

NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured an image of Tropical Storm Ana that
showed the outer clouds were already reaching the big island by 11 a.m.
EDT and the storm resembled a giant question mark.

Tropical Storm Ana was nearing hurricane strength mid-day on Oct. 17 and
the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) expects the storm to become
a hurricane before reaching the big island of Hawaii.

NOAA's GOES-West satellite took an infrared picture of Tropical Storm
Ana as it was approaching Hawaii on Oct. 17 at 11 a.m. EDT (5 a.m. HST).
Ana looked like a giant question mark in the infrared image, as
a large band of thunderstorms wrapped into the center from the eastern
side of the storm and extended south of the storm.

Despite the storm looking like a question mark from space, the Central
Pacific Hurricane Center said that there is no question the storm has
been intensifying.

A Tropical Storm Watch remained in effect for Hawaii
County on Oct. 17. A tropical storm watch means that tropical storm
conditions are possible within the watch area, in this case within 24 to
36 hours. Interests elsewhere in the main Hawaiian Islands, and in the
Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument Area, should monitor the
progress of Ana.

The CPHC expects tropical-storm-force winds to affect the Big Island of
Hawaii by tonight, Oct. 17. In addition, heavy rainfall with total rain
accumulations between 6 and 8 inches, with isolated totals of 12 inches
are possible. Heavy rain could potentially affect the other islands
Saturday and Sunday. This rainfall could cause life-threatening flash
floods and mud slides.

In addition to the winds and heavy rainfall, dangerous surf will precede
and Ana. CPHC noted that large swells are expected to build over the
eastern end of the main Hawaiian island chain today (Oct. 17) through
Saturday. These large swells will continue to spread up the island chain
through the weekend. Surf produced by these swells could potentially be
damaging along exposed south and southeast shorelines beginning later
today and Saturday, and persisting through the weekend in some areas.

At 11 a.m. EDT (5 a.m. HST) maximum sustained winds were near 70 mph
(110 kph) and Ana is expected to become a hurricane later in the day
with gradual weakening expected Saturday and Sunday. The center of
tropical storm Ana was located near latitude 15.7 north, longitude 154.2
west. Ana was moving toward the west-northwest near 14 mph (22 kph)

Ana is expected to turn slightly to the northwest and slow over the
weekend of Oct. 18 and 19. After a brief stint as a hurricane overnight
Oct.17 and early Oct. 18 when it will be west of the Big Island, it is
expected to weaken back to a tropical storm and move almost parallel to
the Hawaiian Islands while remaining over water, west of the islands. By
mid-week next week, around Oct. 18, the CPHC expects Ana to track
through the French Frigate Shoals.

In September, the US Department of Agriculture greenlighted new GMO corn and soybean products engineered to resist two kinds of herbicides, Roundup (glyphosate) and an older, more toxic one called 2,4-D (which
was one of two ingredients in the powerful defoliant used in the
Vietnam War called Agent Orange). And on Wednesday, the Environmental
Protection Agency approved of a new 2,4-D formulation called Enlist, which has been designed for use on the novel seeds, in six corn/soy-heavy states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
That means starting in spring 2015, farmers in the Midwestern Corn Belt
will likely be dousing their crops with 2,4-D as well as Roundup, in an
effort to control the plague of weeds that have evolved to resist
Roundup.

The
authors predict that glyphosate (Roundup) use will hold steady at high
levels—and use of other herbicides, like 2,4-D, will soar.: From Mortensen, at al, "Navigating a Critical Juncture for Sustainable Weed Management," BioScience, Jan. 2012

So what's the big deal? In this 2012 post, I laid out research by a team led by Pennsylvania State University crop scientist David A. Mortensen (paper abstract here)
on how the new products are at best a temporary solution to the problem
of "superweeds"—they lead farmers down a path of ever-increasing
reliance on agrichemicals. They argue that chances are "actually quite
high" that Dow's new product will unleash a new generation of weeds
resistant to both herbicides, because when farmers apply 2,4-D to weeds
that are already resistant to Roundup, they'll essentially be selecting
for weeds that can resist both. Their projection of how such double
resistance will affect herbicide use is at the left—a boon for
agrichemical sales, but not so great for the environment.

A comet is on course for a super-close approach to the planet Mars this
Sunday (Oct. 19) in a rare celestial encounter. And if you have a
moderate-size telescope, you just might be able to spot the icy wanderer
as it nears the Red Planet, weather permitting.

The comet in question is Comet Siding Spring,
which was discovered on Jan. 3, 2013 by the Scottish-Australian
astronomer Robert H. McNaught, a prolific observer of both comets and
asteroids. McNaught has discovered 82 previously unseen comets,
including a stupendously bright one that briefly became visible to the
naked eye in broad daylight in January 2007.

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